This week I received a letter from a woman asking, ”What is wrong with me, why would I feel bad and believe his twisted stories? I am really sick, aren’t I? I fell for him 2 times! After almost losing everything, including my life with the first one?”

I have answered this question before but the issues raised by these questions are so important that I’ll discuss them again.

The real question here is, what exactly is love? Love is the glue that binds us together as a social species. Without love, we would all live solitary lives, husbands and wives would not stay together, parents would not care for children and none of us would have any friends. Scientists have found that the social glue we call love has at lease four different ingredients.

Attachment is the first ingredient of love. Attachment is defined as a compulsion to seek proximity to a specific special other. Seeking proximity means trying to get near the other person, i.e., calling him/her on the phone, driving by his/her house, sending emails. A compulsion is something a person feels he has to do. It is an unconscious force that drives behavior. Typically, once a compulsion starts, it will produce a great deal of anxiety/fear until it is acted upon. For example, people with obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, have urges to do things and will feel overwhelmingly anxious until they do what those urges tell them to do.

Having sex with someone, sharing emotional intimacy and time, create attachment. This attachment means a compulsion to be with that person. Typically, people with an underlying tendency to have anxiety have stronger attachments because they experience a compulsion to be near the other that causes anxiety until it is acted upon. People who already have anxiety, have anxiety on top of anxiety, and feel more compelled to give in to the compulsion.

Generally speaking, it is good to be unconsciously compelled to be near loved ones. These compulsions remind me not to get too busy to call my dear parents. They also remind me to keep track of my teenaged daughter, even though she is more independent now. Problems only arise when one has the compulsion to be with a person with sociopathic personality traits. There is nothing worse than a compulsion to be near a psychopath!

Sociopaths and psychopaths are con artists. They entice others to form attachments to them through deception and trickery. The problem is that our unconscious minds do not distinguish between attachments made after deception and those made legitimately. Furthermore, the anxiety psychopaths create in their victims only serves to strengthen attachment!

The woman who wrote me asked, “What is wrong with me, why would I feel bad and believe his twisted stories?” When a person is under the influence of a compulsion, he has to adjust his view of reality to fit that compulsion. For example, people who feel a compulsion to repeatedly wash their hands see germs everywhere. If we feel the compulsion to seek proximity to someone, we automatically believe that person is good. In these instances our beliefs are caused by our actions, not the other way around. We may think we love someone because he/she is beautiful, when in reality he/she is beautiful because we love them. (There is a song from the musical Cinderella, Do I love you because you’re wonderful or are you wonderful because I love you?).

What I have written explains why attachment/love is like addiction. Really, it is addiction that highjacks the attachment pathways in the brain. All this explanation is of little value unless it can help us deal with ourselves better. So the real problem is, what does a person do when he/she discovers a compulsion to be with a sociopath/psychopath?

It is very important to recognize the role that anxiety plays in compulsions. Combat anxiety and you combat compulsions. Start by not drinking alcohol and avoiding excessive caffeine. Alcohol temporarily relieves anxiety, but the anxiety intensifies when the alcohol wears off. Next, get enough sleep. Will power is required to fight a compulsion; lack of sleep impairs will power. Fight anxiety by exercising and cultivating quality friendships. At least, have a dog to take walks with! (Louise Gallagher’s dog has helped her to recover; she wrote about this in Dandelion Spirit.)

Many people who are fighting compulsions to maintain proximity to a sociopath/psychopath become so self-absorbed that they fail to honor important obligations to self, work, friends and family. This reaction only magnifies the attachment compulsion, because guilt only increases anxiety. Furthermore, neglect of children makes genetically predisposed behavior worse, and children who behave badly are a source of stress/anxiety.

To all of you who are parents, your relationships with your children can either hurt you or help you when it comes to recovery. If you focus on loving your child and spending quality time with him/her, your anxiety will go down for three reasons. First, if you are emotionally distant from your child, your own unconscious mind knows this and makes you anxious. Second, quality time with your child will make your child easier to live with over time. Third, real intimacy with your child will relieve your anxiety. This is healthy, not unhealthy, you and your child need each other, especially during times of stress. Intimacy is what family is all about.

I bring up this issue of our children because what I find is that many parents, especially mothers, become preoccupied with their relationship anxiety and withdraw from their kids. This response only makes them more anxious. It only serves to create a more dysfunctional family for the children.

We are challenged in life to do the right thing for ourselves and our families in spite of anxiety and compulsions. Start today to get well by seeking your own true well-being.

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Comment on this article

This is what I have been asking myself lately. I am really really sick. I am tearing off my nails down to the cuticle and shaking with nerves, I have no strength and lost 20 lbs in 2 months. I can’t eat, my sleep is fitful with crazy dreams, and my whole life is suffering.

The desire to see him and be near him is torture and I always give in even though I know he is with someone else that “he loves.” But denies he loves her even though he wrote it all over the internet. He says she wrote it and is crazy.

Still when he says “I miss you Kitty” it’s so sincere so like when he used to say it when we were together. I just fall back into him and believe him.

We are talking about a man who was accused of stealing from every employer (he denies it), was in prison for 4 years (says he changed that lifestyle), has been sleeping with someone else and posting it all over the internet (says we were broken up so it doesn’t count as cheating – which is true), took my roommate’s credit card number and ordered jewelry and a fake pistol (says he wanted to commit suicide by cop), has been in the psych ward of 3 different hospital 5 times in the past 3 months, oh the list goes on….

Still when he calls I feel “better” and when I see him I feel “normal” instead of anxious.

He says he doesn’t love this other girl and loves me and wants to be with me. Says he messed up so bad and made mistakes – cries and cries uncontrollably, lies about everything and when I catch him twists it around to make me look like the bad guy.

He says he cares about me and was with her because he didn’t want to be alone. That I left him alone (I did most of the time), that I wasn’t there for him when he was cutting himself and I left him on the side of the road.

I am twisting everything around to fit into my head but my mind can’t even wrap istself around the idea that the person I spent well over three years with – took baths with – held at night – who caressed my cheek and played with my hair – is a sociopath.

He is in the hospital AGAIN and begs me to come see him and gets angry and hangs up if I say I won’t or can’t.

He cries and says to me “you are doing this to yourself, you are emaciated, you are tearing your own nails off, you need help too.” He says, “I want to help you but I am helpless myself, you need to get your studio and work together, people love you and need you and you do a great service for people, please don’t destroy yourself.”

I believe him. I momentarily forget the insanity that has gone on for the past three months, let alone all the things that happened in three years.

He made me so angry all the time. I was yelling and screaming and calling him names. It was like he would do things to enrage me.

He had his license suspended and never told me then got arrested, I never knew until later.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

He says he is going into a 90 day rehab but he needs me to help him through it to know that I will be here when he gets out and to visit him when he is there. He says when he gets out we will get a place together. Oh how I want to believe him.

I have sick ideas that he is going to get back with this other girl and turn his life around for her and have everything he wanted with her and buy a house together and marry her like we were supposed to.

This grils writes all over the internet how he is her “boyfriend.” Balh Blah Blah.

I feel they are both out to get me and are scheming and planning my demise all the while he is telling me he wants to be with me and help me.

NO CONTACT IS SO HARD. I just can’t do it. My thoughts of the good times with him are so strong. My thoughts of how I treated him badly make me feel so guilty. The thought of him with another person kills me.

I am that far gone and can’t even bring myself to shower each day for fear of being naked and having to see myself naked.

As Dr. Leedom said in this post, staying away from the psychopath is like breaking an addiction. That’s what you need to do. Stay strong – minute by minute.

No contact is hard, but it is essential. Especially for you. Each time you allow him to talk to you, he is manipulating you. Change your phone numbers. Change your e-mail. Do not allow him to contact you. Minute by minute.

He’s like an alien that has gotten inside your mind. He’s sucking the life out of you. Don’t let him do it.

I have been struggling the same as Holehearted for over a year now. It is absolutely insane and even dangerous to be around him but I just can’t get strong enough to fight his lures. Even though I know they are lures! Donna you are so right about the alien analagy. It’s funny you use that term as that is how I try to explain to people who have never encountered a sociopathic relationship before..”like being abducted by aliens…undescribable…nothing of this world”. (I only wish)
I did well for a while, even got to the point of starting the no-contact order. Police sent a warning letter about criminal harrassment. A month later, I couldn’t stop myself and started talking to him again and now the same old games continue and I feel the same old emotions… weak, angry and emotionally ruined. Why does it make me so so sick to know that he is with other women? I should be happy to have his attention away from me so I can start to get on with my life. I’ve never been so in love, so attracted, so connected to someone and yet never been so destroted by that same person. I tried dating someone for a while but just couldn’t feel attracted…nothing felt like I wanted it to, the ex was all I wanted touching me’. I’m financially independent, going out with freinds, excerising doing all I think I can to be ‘healthy’ but life feels so so neutral without that ‘connection’. Sometimes I feel I will be like this forever, that nothing will ever compare to those feelings I experienced and that is what depresses me deeply because that is what I have wanted forever. I know everyone says time will fade this but it feels it will take the rest of my life and I therefore end up thinking I should just take the lures. Damed if I do, damned if I don’t. I know how sick this thinking is and am embarrassed to even admit I want to be with him after everything he has done to me. Life just seems to suck worse somehow without contact if that’s even imaginable.

Honey, I feel the SAME way. I just spoke to him and asked him how he expects me to take him back and plan a future and think about getting a place with him after all he has put me through in the last 3 months. Not to mention the years of lost jobs, accusations of theft, etc.

You know what his response is? “You have to get over it and get well.” Take it one day at a time with me.

He actiually said, “Maybe if you had treated me right the past 2 years and didn’t degrade me and make me feel like crap all the time and maybe if you didn’t push me away, I wouldn’t be in the hospital and wouldn’t have been with someone else.

I have to admit I have serious anger issues not just with him but with my family, my workplace, my friends, practically everyone.

I can be downright evil with my comments sometimes for no reason but just to get a reaction from someone.

I definately have borderline personality traits coupled with histrionic tendencies and narccisitic grandious feelings that everyone is beneath me or not competent and I have a sense of entitlement.

I do have to say that this whole encounter as strange as it may seem, has led me to take to good long hard look at myself and I don’t like what I see at all. I don’t like how I have treated people and I certainly don’t like the way I am now.

I seem to go between feeling superior to feeling totally worthless sometimes in a matter of minutes and other times days.

I have to say he never “abused” me, never called me names, never yelled at me for more than a split second if we were fighting, he never hit me, and never cheated on me as far as I know.

He did treat me with respect and cared for me and tried to do everything I asked of him. My narcissim however made me demand things of him all the time or at the very least expect things he was not yet capable of giving.

I pretty much denied him sex and if he bought me something I didn’t like it was a battle making him feel like crap.

Yes i made little or no effort to every give him what he needed. If he asked me for a hug I was too busy, if he asked me to make love, I couldn’t be bothered. If he asked me for something for his birthday I just got him whatever I wanted and he accepted it gratefully and didn’t complain.

I am so twisted up inside I am not sure who is the sociopath anymore.

I like to think I am better than that.. I teach Yoga, yet I smoke, I teach about healthy eating, yet I haven’t been eating.

I have college and graduate education and he has a GED and boy did I throw that up in his face all the time.

Sometimes I think I am just as much the monster – maybe more so I don’t even know.

I could never prove he stole from his employers – he said when the found out about his record, they automatically accused him unfairly. This could or could not be true, but three times in three years? He did crash his cars a lot. Not sure what that was about… reckless thrill seeking of the sociopath?

Sometimes I think I am dealing with a child of anywhere between 5 and 13 years old and I act like the abusive or neglectful parent. It’s so sick I want to throw up and die.

Yet, I say I love him unconditionally and forgive him for anything.

The other day I actually said to him “please don’t leave me I promise I’ll be good.” Which made him cry and he said he used to say that to his mother.

I should say my parents were both heroin addicts, I grew up in a house where my grandmother was co-dependent and enabled my father. I watched my grandfather get stabbed and mugged when I was about 5 and then he died a year later after my grandmother.

I did live feral for a whiile in a filthy apartment when my dad was doing drugs or in the hospital. I was abused by the neighborhood kids (being I was the only white girl). I bounced around from foster home to foster home, and then ended up with a family who became “my family.” I got the double whammy with the alocholic foster fother and crazy co-dependent foster mother though.

I thought I turned our “normal” considering my circumstances. I got an education, I worked hard (bounced from career to career though), I got my Yoga and other certifications, have my own studio, and my borker’s license, and teach at local gyms. I thought I was okay, but I realize that I am just as parasitic as he is since my car and my phone are not under my name because of my bad credit. My roommate is my ex-boyfriend who I helped buy the house with. (Yes the three of us lived together, but it seemed to work).

I don’t have the means or the motivation to get my own place I know I would feel so alone.

I am so much sicker than I thought I was and I have tried to get help, they just give me meds, or tell me I need lithium in an in or out patient setting.

The only thing I look forward to now are his phone calls and teaching. My life is horrendous and all I can do is complain.

The sick part is.. he is in the hospital saying to me but you aren’t doing anything to help yourself you are just sitting in your shit because you like being miserable. Go out do something – drive yourself to the therapists office and demand an appointment.”

He is giving me sound advice and this is from the person who I see as doing the most damage.

I am so sick, I just want it to end. My health is starting to fail I can feel it too. Just being so weak and drained and my chest hurts all the time. I liked it better when I was angry all the time I think…maybe that’s why I want him back.

Either that or I just can’t stand the idea of him being happy with someone else.

I feel no one will ever love me, that any love I ever had was a lie..that even though I had someone who loved me I pushed him away because I felt he wasn’t good enough for me.

I truly think I need to be hospitalized at this point bur I have to keep my teaching appointments and keep my studio running though it is barely surviving. I am barely surviving.

The only good thing I did today was get a teaching spot at NYSC Gym which is exactly where his other girl goes to the gym. Not so sure how good that is.

I have a job interview on Monday for a PR firm as admin. I need to work and I am broke, I am depressed and I see no hope for any kind of future. I look and feel terrible.

I am hooked on sleeping pills and I am can’t continue with these mood swings. I am scared to be in public places except to teach and run quick errands.

I have no joy in my life and I am neglecting my cats.

This board gives me some hope but I see some many of us struggling even after years of leaving the sick relationship behind.

Oh yeah I failed to mention my grandfather had a heart attack and died right in front of me about a year after he was mugged and stabbed. I was so young it killed me because all I could think was who will take care of me now?

This is how he got you CLICK HERE And by treating this as the trauma it is, as Donna said, and taking it one day at a time – you need to REPROGRAM yourself. Our site’s victims say it takes 2-3 years for them just to feel “normal” and like themselves again.

You aren’t sick on your own. You were INFECTED on purpose for someone else’s gratification. PREDATORS HUNT THE WOUNDED and they smell lonely, depressed, divorced, sad, disabled, abused women a mile away. It’s not your fault.

September 21, 2007 9:52 pm

greencard

Hi,
I am new with an new but probably a very familiar story….Until I found this sit I had no idea there were others like me..My Dr told me her was sure my ex was a sociopath although I saw red flags I never knew what it was called….Sad but true I sonsered a man from Italy he married me for ten years we adopted two kids..I remember I found him a job he hated it but told me he would leave then the pear was ripe he called this an italian phrase yet it scared me. I always had a feeling he could do it to me and he did after sexual abuse, he learned the laws and divorced me claiming i abused him!!!!!He put on the best show it took only a few to see what he had done..Now my daughters told me last night that they are scared daddy will kill momma with a sword..They cried and made me lock all of my windows..
What to do he is the most charming con I have ever met or even seen in a movie, I just want him to back to Italy..

September 23, 2007 2:01 pm

smellycat

I am so thankful for this blog. I’ve been involved with a
man for the last two years who fits this same scenario.

I married him, paid off his debts, lost almost everything I
valued and collected over the past 30 years.

I think my story is unique because I contracted the HPV-
16 virus from him, which he knew he had (his previous
wife got cervical and oral cancer from him) and didn’t
disclose it to me. Therefore, I pressured him into providing me with 3 years of his health insurance and he is paying back to me a portion of his debt that I paid off for him. I have to have a colposcopy every three months
til who knows when. Cancer is very likely for me.

I’m 51 years old, have a stable background, and suddendly find myself in the most intense turmoil I’ve
ever known. I’m so sick of his hot and cold attention
towards me. He justifies his behavior to himself only.
He has no one else in his life except his son who visits
him periodically to appease him.

He was honest with me throughout our courting and I
was mesmerized by his honesty. He revealed to me the secrets of his past and even blatantly told me the truth but that only served to snag me even deeper into his drama.

Now I truly know humiliation and regret. I’ve died a hundred deaths since knowing him. I’ve been in
therapy since I met him and I don’t see an end to it any
time soon. He’s left nothing but destruction in his wake.
He’s taken all the steam out of me, and I let him do it.

I want to be rid of him and feel even worse when I fall
for his attempts to reconcile with me.

I can so relate to all of your stories. My life is in ruins
and I have very little hope for my future. I’m so tired.

Smellcat

September 26, 2007 8:33 pm

loserchooser

I am always amazed how similar all of our lives are during and after the “psycho experience”. It’s like we were all married or otherwise found ourselves in a relationship with the same person!

I have been seperated and going through an ugly divorce for 4 months now. I spoke to him on the phone 3 times the first 2 weeks we were seperated. I’ve seen him twice, once when I went to the house to get some of my belongings (he was court ordered to do it) and again when I was moving some larger items from a warehouse I PAID TO BUILD, BUT NOW HE SAYS IT IS HIS ! When I just even think of seeing him, or much worse having to speak to him I get nausiated and my shoulders tince to the point of aching and burning.

The last time I saw him was 4 weeks ago in the court house hallway. He doesn’t have the balls to go in the courtroom! I still have to see him and actually sit in the same room during a deposition in 3 weeks.

I still cry every day, I mourn the loss of someone I was so much in love with and thought would be there the rest of my life just to realize that person never existed. I fell in love with, and had my soul ripped out by a figment of a psychopaths imagination; a figment that was molded out of my dreams of the perfect man and the perfect lover, to steal my life and my dreams and make them his own. I hope I am not out of line to say that, I sometimes think it would have been easier to take if he had died.

4 months and I can’t stand to look at any male figure without getting a feeling of total disgust. If I see a man looking at me or, God help them, they speak to me and want to lash out at them. I know it’s wrong, but I just can’t help it right now.

I can’t believe how many people are/were involved with a sociopath and are in such bad places in their lives right now.

My “other” is still thinking I believe that he wants to reconcile with me. He talks to me the same way now as he did when we were together as if nothing has happened.

This is after his friend told me he was stealing from everyone, after he has been with another woman on and off for 3 months bouncing back and forth between us, after he took my roommate’s credit card and banged it out, after he has been in the hospital five time in the last 3 months, and after I have seen photos and read stories of him having sex with this other woman that she wrote. Again, after having texting me he was going to kill himself and after having me look for him and then telling the police I was stalking him, and having his friend call the police to say I was harrassing them.

This is the problem, I see him getting his life together, getting a job, and having a happy life with her, the life we were supposed to have together. That would be fine if he said that to me “look I love someone else and I am moving on.” But he doesn’t, he keeps saying he loves me and wants to be with me and was only with her because he didn’t want to be alone.

We have no children together and are not married so it’s supposed to be easier I think, but the feelings are still the same.

It’s like he knew how to make me angry when we were together. He knew if he took $20 out of my bag without letting me know, I would say okay the first time, get a little upset the second time, get angry the third and then just freak out every time after that. It wasn’t so much that he took the money, it was that I had nothing for that day or had to go to the bank. There were times he took my bank card without telling me and I couldn’t deposit or get cash out the whole day.

He knew my weak spot was getting panicky about not having enough money or a decent place to live, since my childhood was so bad.

On the one side he wanted to “make me happy” and on the other side he was “making me afraid” every time he crashed a car or lost a job and was accused of stealing.

This is just an example of the little things he did. He would do things and then lie about them or not tell me and then when I found out and got angry, he would say “I didn’t want to upset your day, I wanted to make your day easier without any worries.”

At the time it made sense and made him look like a good guy. My mind is so twisted at this point I look back and think, I was so aweful to him and mean and nasty and all he ever wanted was to love me… I am the crazy one.

Then I will look back at the employers who said he was stealing from them, the crashed cars, the repossesed car, the melingering and constant visits to the hospital for sinus infections or whatever, and think, this was not normal. I was angry because I was afraid and kept in the dark about what he was doing.

Like loserchooser, I mourn the loss of something that maybe never existed, but he’s still around and saying it’s all my fault. Al he ever wanted to do was love me and I pushed him away. He says all I ever had to do was be nice to him and everything would have been okay.

I believe him too. I say well if only I hadn’t done this or said that, things would have been okay.

I never lied to him, my anger was honest, I only lied a few times when I took off the engagement ring because I was angry and told him it was getting dipped, I think I did that twice or three times. Still not right to do, but my anger was so intense it was blinding.

I was angry not just at him but at everyone including myself.

I am not an angel or a perfect person, but I thought I was. I held myself above everyone when in reality I was really insecure and depressed. Not his fault but the relationship did take a toll on me.

I don’t know why I let myself get so angry. But it was like he was controlling my anger, not me. He knew how to play the good guy while doing things he knew would make me angry. passive/aggresive.

I am pretty much convinced that he was done with me a long time ago when he moved out. Though he said it was because he wanted to show me he could do it on his own.

When he got his landscaping business I should have been more supportive and excited for him and went and saw his equipment and the properties he was working on. I could have given him more encouragement. I don’t know anymore.

I wish I could go back in time and change everything.

My dreams are haunted by him too. I dream of him sleeping with this woman and laughing at me behind my back, I dream of him really having a normal life and having lied to me about being broke all the time and he goes and buys a house and marries this girl and they have the life I should have had with him. I wake up crying and shaking.

I even had a dream that he threw me on the floor and drive a knife through my chest, and I look down and he pulls the knife out and there is blood spilling out and I try to cover it with my hand, and “I say you killed me.” Then I wake up.

Everone says NO CONTACT, this site, my friends, my family, everyone and I don’t listen because of my own guilt and stupidity.

The funny thing is toward the end, I was actually proud of him, he had his own place, his own business, and had gotten another vehicle. I was ready to move in with him.

Then it’s a whirlwind of… another accident, his friend saying he wasn’t working the business when he told me his was, his cat that didn’t die that he said did, his friend telling me stories of him stealing and cheating on me, him cutting himself and going in the hospital… on and on….

I wonder if it was all a plot that he really was working his business and didn’t crash his last car…that he was pissed about the money I said I was going to keep so he planned this elaborate hoax with his friend to drive me nuts.

I can’t even tell you the lies his friend told me because I don’t know the truth from the lies anymore.

They had me running here there and everywhere. I feel like a fool and I know he is laughing at me…

He gets me everytime though…get me with his sweet voice and I love you and I only wanted to make you happy…

If I question him or ask about the lies… he calls me a piece of shit…

Devalue and discard I guess is the way he is playing it.

I asked him to go to the police and tell him that he really took the credit card and I had nothing to do with it… he got enraged and called me names and hung up the phone.

Then he called me back and asked in a sweet voice if I was still going to pick him up.

I am afraid he is setting me up for something really bad…but I want to trust him.

I should just move out of the state.

Why couldn’t we just have had a normal life, gotten married, gotten an apartment together? Why did it have to be so bad???!!!

He says he just wanted to feel loved and wanted and I didn’t make him feel that way. I guess I didn’t for whatever reason out of fear, resentment, my own insecurities.

Now this other woman he is with is 9 years younger than he is, she’s got a lot of insecurities too. She’s got a lot of problems, and I see her trying to fix them “for him.” She wantes to stop drinking for him, etc. I kind of feel bad for her and don’t like her at the same time. What scares me is that she would do “anything” for him. I think she would kill me if he told her to.

Here’s the kicker, I have so much going for me.. I have an education, a small business, a place to live etc… and I know he could do things to make me lose these things. He said it many times… “I could ruin your life if I wanted to… you would lose your home, your business, everything… but I don’t want to see that happen to you because I love you and it would ruin you and devastate you.”

I should be running for my life right? I should just tell him to be happy and go be with this girl. I have tried that too.

I should just ignore him. He wants me to pick him up and he says, “I know I can’t rely on you..and there was ever a time when I wasn’t there for you when you needed me?”

He’s so good at twisting everything around to make me look like the bad guy…and in ways I was not the best person.

I don’t want to go into the hospital.

He says to me… “I will leave you alone and never contact you again, but you have to promise me that you will take care of yourself and get help.”

He’s so convincing…and part of me believes him. The other part feels he is setting me up for something… that he is going to ruin me and hurt me in some way. He already has hurt me and then turned on me saying, “You created all this, you set the wheels in motion when all you had to do was be nice to me and love me.”

Maybe he’s right….or maybe it would not have mattered if I had been nice to him…maybe it would have been worse.

Thing is if he applied his energy, intelligence and charm in the right direction, he would do very well. I could say the same about myself I suppose.

You know that he is bad for you. You know that you should have no contact with him. Yet you admit you will probably give him a ride.

I say this sympathetically – you have been psychologically damaged by him. You have to get rid of him – but it might require assistance. Please get some therapy. However, make sure the counselor understands psychopaths and how they manipulate their victims.

Seek support from your friends and family who know you and believe in you. You have to get the infection out of your brain, and it’s very difficult to do alone.

I am too far gone now I think. I don’t think I will ever be well again.

I picked him up of course… took him whereever he wanted to go. Left him at a motel.

He says he wants to take me to the movies — start over type of thing.

He is playing mind games with me I know this and probably has his girlfriend reading this board and feeding him information.

I think he has gotten an apartment with her in NYC or somewhere near here, but he claims he is going to a rehab on Thursday.

Could this all be an elaborate hoax just to mess with my mind?

Why can’t he just tell me the truth it would be so much easier? Why can’t he just say… this is the way it is and I don’t want to be with you so I can move on. Why does he still want me to believe he loves me?

Is he moving toward murder by suicide? I can’t believe this is the same person who played with my hair and looked into my eyes and told me he loved me.

I was the mean and angry one, I was the one who always thought he would get into trouble.

Why can’t I just be happy and move on like none of this ever happened? Why do all my hopes and dreams have to get shattered over and over again? I just can’t take it anymore.

October 1, 2007 4:07 pm

loserchooser

Holehearted,

Donna is right – get a therapist, go to a hospital, get yourself some help. Although it seems you are all alone in dealing with this (I feel that way too sometimes) the situation you are in is shared by every man and woman on this board. Be strong for yourself and your family, and stay away from that piece of SH**. Change your number if you must. My lawyer is changing all of my personal info for me over the next few months. It stinks in that I have worked so hard to maintain my good credit, and now I have to start over, but that is better than not having the chance to start at all.

Your life is a precious thing-his life is a parasite.

October 1, 2007 10:02 pm

duped

Sociopaths use truth to weave their lies and keep you questioning your own experiences. The solution, as I have broken free from mine in terms of my attachment (we have a child together so ‘free’ is relative), is to hold to your own truth, take care of yourself and find hope and love within side YOU! A sociopath only has the power YOU give THEM, at least as far as your attachment is concerned. ‘Living well is the best revenge’ and strengthens you in dealings with others that may question you based on his twisted truths.

Start by loving yourself, reach out to those who truly love you and make new friends (not lovers). Until you can stand on your own, the only lover you will attract is someone who is lost themselves or looking to exploit your weakness!

Don’t use your sociopath as an excuse to not be accountable for your life. If you are unhappy, make change. Get professional help if you are disabled in making positive change. Own your life from this point forward!

Live TRUTH!

October 4, 2007 3:40 pm

gettingoverthetrauma

Am I the only person here who is SO suspicious and SO traumatized and SO damaged by what happened to me with my sociopath, that I think that “holehearted” is ACTUALLY the lying sociopath trying to put one over on all of us? Her stories sound outrageous frankly.

I am sorry to offend, but I am concerned (for myself) that I still can’t distinguish the truth from lies, even “holehearted’s” postings make me wonder if “she” isn’t a fraud.

October 5, 2007 5:53 pm

loserchooser

gettingoverthetrauma,

NO-You’re not the only one. I think there are predators on all the web sites. If these stories are true though, I think the point has been made clear here that he, or she needs professional help. I went for help as soon as I found out what was happening to me, but this site is a great sounding board and source of information.

Trust me I don’t even know the truth from the lies anymore! I don’t blame you for thinking I might be sociopath. I am questioning it myself.

However, I can assure you my posts are true in terms of the situation and how it has played out to me.

He is in a rehab now supposedly. He is back with this other girl and she is “so happy.”

He has ME so twisted I am thinking the post by “gettingoverthetrauma” wasn’t posted by his “girlfriend.”

How’s that for paranoia?

Trust me I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

I hate him and I love him. He is two different people. I can’t tell which one is real anymore.

So I have no choice but to forgive myself for anything I have done or said and just let it go. No more accepting his phone calls. Frankly I can’t care what happens to him.

He could die tomorrow or get married and have a baby next week and it should not matter to me.

My first concern should be myself and therein lies the problem. The probem isn’t what he is or isn’t doing – it is what I am doing to myself trying to maintain his love for me which never existed in the first place.

I think when you know someone is lying to you but you don’t “know” it in your head, you sense it but don’t know what it is.. it makes you angry at everything and you don’t know what you’re really angry about.

I have to remind myself that he’s the one who has been in and out of hospitals at least 15 times in his life, that he was at all the schools for problem children, that he was in prison, that he did all these things.

I had it rough and have done thing that I am not proud of, but have not been stealing from all my employers and conning people into getting me a car so I could crash it and collect on the insurance money and then NOT pay for the car that got repossessed.

Anyway, it all doesn’t matter to me anymore. I have to give up… I have to let it all go before it kills me which is what he is hoping for I am sure.

I have outlived my usefulness to him at this moment. I am devalued and discarded.

Now I have to pick up the pieces and find myself all over again.

Last night, I had a conversation with someone I was in love with 20 years ago.

He told me so many things, you can’t imagine.

My sister told me he was cheating on me and that’s why we broke up so long ago… but he swears to this day, he never did.

I believe him. Anyway he is out in CA and I am in NY and he has been going through somewhat of the same thing I have for the past 4 months too. Strange.

He made me feel better – made remember who I am and not what I have temporarily become.

So, I don’t know if I have sociopath tendencies. I wasn’t like that 20 years ago really. And this other person confirmed that for me.

I think they sociopath projects so well that you don’t know who you are anymore. It’s such a psychological twisting, that you can’t tell if you’re the sick sick sick abusive one or just confused, deceived, conned, and then trashed.

Is it abusive to fight for yourself? Is it abusive to use words to defend yourself when you are being lied to and manipulated and you know it one one level – but not consciously?

I think it is a lot like self defense… the psyche feels the attack, but the consciousness doesn’t… so it fights back and it looks like abuse.

It’s like if someone is trying to kill you and you fight back, but they make it look like you were the one trying to kill them. You don’t even know yourself anymore.

It’s horrible.

I don’t even know what I like anymore.

I used to love Yoga and teaching it.

I used to love Indian Movies and Indian Food and loved going to the bookstore and spending time home reading and going to little towns on the weekends.

I don’t even know what I love anymore.

I have lost myself and that is the most tragic part.

You know how I know it’s not me? Because he went into a psyche ward.. claimed he was suicidal, then said he was just sayind that so his friend would not have him arrested (for no reason), then said he was going to get this staff girl’s number just to piss me off, then hooked up with some crazy bitch and has been scheming me ever since.

he is happy in his pictures with her (with a little evil smile), he is like I win you bitch!

So that’s how I know… if he was really suicidal – he would not have done half the things he’s done…

I meant I was thinking that gettingoverit’s posts might have been posted by his girlfriend just to mess with my head.

Thanks

October 6, 2007 10:00 am

optimisticpd

Thank you so much for your honesty to all.

This site helps so much when I am feeling the past traumas.

Since he lives two miles away, I do see him passing my house, etc.

What I think I am experiencing are flashbacks, not visual, but emotional. They are in my muscle memory. Yes, I am a physician.

They love physicians, because we need stuff too. In fact, he said his first girlfriend after his wife’s death, was a physician and a ballroom dancer like me.

When we initially spoke he told me his wife died of ovarian cancer and left him with two children in high school. On an internet dating site, he mentioned that he was a former CIA person, that he could find out anything about anyone so don’t lie he wrote in CAPS, that it was SO important to live in the present. Yet, he called his deceased wife who did not have a PAP FOR TEN YEARS and died of cervical, not ovarian, cancer — “his wife” for the first two years of our togetherness. Do you think this physician feels foolish? It is called — CODEPENDENCE.

Yes he has HPV, the bad kind, that is secondary to the fact that he is uncircumsized (higher chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases), and was a Greek God when he was young, and slept with countless women, sheep, whatever. Yes, my sense of humor has returned.

While we were together I tried to contact his ex physician girlfriend, he would not give me her last name, I found it, called her, and he yelled AT ME for harassment. She was calling him, sending sexual cards, etc. Oh, she is not a physician.

But I digress.

If I were to list the incongruities that occurred over the last four and one half years with The Greek as I now call him, my blood boils. I am ashamed. This is not productive for my healing.

BEFORE THIS SITE, I would e-mail him and tell him how rude, emotionally detached, consistently inconsistent, etc. he was. Now — I am quiet. I am detached. I don’t expect him to understand how he hurt me, and I understand that he is incapable of loving me — “the only other woman he could love besides his wife.”

Most of the time, this detachment helps me heal. There are moments, and that is when I pop on this site which soothes me.

Optimisticpd is a new disorder I created which means Optimistic Personality Disorder. I thought with enough love and understanding of HIS situation I could help him. NOW I have COPD which stands for Cautious Optimistic Personality Disorder.

The person I need to save is myself, not some man with issues.

I am falling in love with myself. That was the missing ingredient. For the first time in my life, I am alone, but not lonely. Yes, I obtained a little dog.

What I am discovering is that I really like myself. I allow quality people in my life, both men and women.

I only have dinner dates with men to test my listening skills and to test if I will believe what they say and what I attract. I am honest and tell them I am not available for a relationship now. No explanation required. I do not know them, I know what they are telling me. We attract who we are.

I need time to emotionally reboot. I am emotionally exhausted. Yet, I feel stronger and more beautiful than ever.

I am rewriting my book with incredible clarity. During the writing of my first book I was living in a snake pit of consistent inconsistency.

Making new friends. Expunging old friends who are needy, histrionic, who are unable to do the volley a healthy friendship requires. I am ballroom dancing many nights a week, and riding my bike on the boardwalk. I am studying a lot. My mind is quiet, and I am sleeping well now.

So, thank you to all of you for your earnestness. You have helped me.

And, of course, I still have moments. Hope this emotional diarrhea helped someone.

Your post is really helpful to me… it gives me hope that one day I will be able to get over all this.

I go to sleep missing him and wake up missing him still… wondering how it all happened so quickly.

I have no joy in anything. My roommate is having a party tomorrow and I can’t bring myself to even clean my room.

I certainly don’t want to be here for the party and don’t want to go anywhere either.. so I am stuck.

My life is a mess, my room is a mess, my finances are a mess, my head and heart are a mess.

He left me with this great big mess and is going to go and have a happy life with his 21 year old girlfriend and I am left here with the mess he left behind and his cats.

It sickens me to no end. I sicken myself and don’t know if I can ever recover from the hurt I caused and the hurt he caused.

None of my friends really want to talk to me because of all that has happened.

I can’t face my roommates friends and family since he took his credit card number and banged it out.

My next door neighbor has the cops watching her house every now and then because she is afraid he will come back and try to steal from her or something.

When I see a picture of him, I cry missing him. I am doomed.. or at least I feel doomed.

Does it ever end?

October 6, 2007 1:26 pm

smellycat

The post in which holehearted describes her feelings about herself and feeling as if she’s lost herself, rings true with me, also.

Psycho told me I was an alcoholic so I didn’t drink and started to go to AA and WFS meetings. (He was a RAGING alcoholic most of his life). Since I left him, my drinking has spiraled out of control. I had trouble with depression and anxiety throughout my life but since
I left him and started therapy, I find myself suddenly diagnosed with BPD. And I fell for it and started DBT with a licensed clinician. And a nasty shrink put me on some serious psych meds and won’t take me off of them.
She thinks I’m crazy!

Now I’m wondering whether the power of suggestion is at play here. I’ve never been so messed up in my life and I’m getting worse instead of better.

After reading holehearted’s post, I’m beginning to believe that my change in personality is due to psycho’s
projection. Somehow I lost myself and BECAME HIM!

I’ve gotten so ‘crazy’ that psycho has ended all contact with me! In his eyes as well as his therapist’s, I’m the
one with the problem!

Almost from the beginning of my relationship with him, he started feeding me benzo’s, (a crazy-making drug) to help me sleep whenever I stayed with him overnight. He got up so many times through the night that I started suffering from insomnia. He quickly but methodically brainwashed me. I met him in June and by the following November, I admitted myself to the psych ward for the first time in my life. He’s been admitted countless times throughout his life.

I truly believe he would like to see me dead. We have a legal agreement that keeps me on his health insurance (due to the HPV he gave me) and he has to pay back to me $8,000.00 of the $38,000.00 I lost to him.

I feel I’m fighting for my life and not one of the professionals I’m working with get what’s really going on.

At this point I don’t know what to do besides backing off of all therapy and weaning myself off of the psych meds.
I’m so scared for myself–what is happening??

Stay in therapy and work on having more ability to love, impulse control and morality in your life. If sociopaths pass on thier disease it infects these three areas. Use your ‘wise mind’ particularly to help you gain more impulse control.

I can’t tell anymore if I was always like this and hid it well until he brought it out of me OR

If I was always a good person with some issues and he infected me with his insanity.

Now, I tell you I spoke to his new victim’s father who is a cop and knows his daughter very well.

He told me point blank, “My daughter is just like him… and their disease is infectuous… if they had AIDS, you would stay away from them… they will destroy you and you should move… now that they are together you have no idea the insanity that is about to ensue…”

I have to say that I am so not who I used to be.

I have no desire to try to get my life back together.. I feel what is the point…?

This is from someone who was becoming a successful Yoga teacher with student who really mattered to me.

I feel like I am waiting around to die.

The therapists and psychiatrists I have spoken to seem like they just don’t get it, don’t care or are condescending in some way or another.

I am so sure he would love to see me dead, totally insane or completely destitute or all of the above.

But at the same time, I say why should he leave me with his mess and go and be happy and start a new life with someone else?

I am waiting for someone or something to come and save me… but that’s not happening.

My head and heart are destroyed.

Will it ever just be normal again? I feel like I have no future and no hope for anything in my life anymore.

I look around and don’t even feel like I am home anymore.. like everything looks foreign to me even my own face.

Maybe I was always like this and just ignored it and now I am having to look at myself because there is no one there to blame or judge but myself.

I don’t feel any amount of therapy will help.. maybe Yoga will help, but I don’t even have the desire to do any of it anymore.

October 7, 2007 8:09 am

smellycat

holehearted, depression can make you feel as if things have always been this awful but for me, that’s not the case. I didn’t feel crazy until I met psycho 2 years ago. Before I met him, I had a successful art business and had raised 2 disabled kids on my own, took care of my own home, was close to my family and friends.

I left my psycho in March and it’s only been the last few days that I can say I feel a slight change within me. Not surprisingly, this feeling coincides with not having any contact with him. Having him in my life only served to keep me down and addicted to him. I have determination to take back my life and not let his sorry-excuse-for-a-human destroy me.

Smellycat

(I’ve been listening to Gloria Gaynor’s, I WILL SURVIVE all day today and I’m growing stronger. . . woo-hoo!!)

October 7, 2007 2:19 pm

SMTP901

Hi Girls, I check back her periodically because I too went through a relationship with a sociopath/NPD. I tried to keep a journal when I first left him because I didn’t know what was happening to me. I escaped and yet I yearned for him. I hated him but I was dying to see him. All of sudden I was alone and real life was suppossed to be lived again and I had forgotten how from living in the bubble of his sick world for too long.

I can tell you that the feeling of unrealness gets better. Nothing felt real for me. I was like a zombie. I dreamt of him. I isolated. It’s a blur now but it took months to heal and I’m not all the way there. I want to tell you to hang in there and let time do its work. I cry to this day often feeling I have lost my identity, self worth and purpose. I couldn’t tell you, how in the name of God that happened to me or how I let it happen, but that is the curse of life with a socio that only the victims can understand. I hate that I, the healthy one, now has to heal. But when I read what you write, it shows me that I have made progress. Because I felt like you and now I am better. That means, you too will recover. Please, please give yourself time.

You have to start a whole new life and maybe it will be even better than the one before he came and turned it upside down. I’m still waiting, hoping for that, because honestly my new life ain’t so great. I lost a lot of friends with him, lost passions I once had and lost the verve for life. I am now in pure apathy, which I know is a few steps up the ladder from where I was before. Yeah, it sucks, but that’s what happens. And the more time you spend with him or contacting him (which I did) I can tell you it just prolongs each step you take toward becoming the woman you should be.There is a reason we put up with their behavior, that reason is what we will change hopefully about ourselves.

I know it’s hard to suit up and show up, to go out the door, to do the yoga and all those things we’re suppossed to do to heal when your vitality is completely depleted. So don’t pressure yourself to do them but give yourself time to ruminate, read the blogs, obsess, cry and then tell yourself “that’s enough for today, for right now.”

I find a walk outside with nature is probably the best you can do for yourself when the howling in your head begins. Sunlight, fresh air and some spiritual awakenings are better than self help, therapy and regret, at least that’s what works for me.

I did contact him for too long after, thinking I could win him at his game, and yes, I became like him. Ugly and manipulative lying to his face like he did to me. Don’t bother with that battle because you won’t win. He will always ride off into his sunset with some new girl who can’t see the forest through the trees. He will do to her what he did to you and on and on and on. I know you always think she is making him happy, they are going to have all that he promised you. But he is incapable of giving anyone a beautiful life. No woman can change a socio.

The Dr’s are right, we forget the bad and get nostaligic for the good which was all a LIE. I shame myself for letting him define my happiness. It is up to us to find our way and not wait for someone else to pretend to make our dreams come true. You are healing. Take your time. Ask for help, but it’s a pretty solo journey unfortunately. If you believe in God or Source this is a good time to avail yourself. Check back on your own blogs, you will see how far you’ve come. You WILL GET BETTER! I send good and loving vibes out to all of you. It’s good to know we aren’t alone.

October 7, 2007 10:37 pm

cultmember

Hey there I CAN appreciate what you are trying to do,however that Tim guy is correct ,YOU make some pretty wrong diagnotic assessments about personality and behavioural traits… Basically you sound like a man hater,with your puritan casterating idiologies of men … Wake up ! YOU know scitsophrenics attract psychopaths… so fix your self up YOUR psychosis, STOP YOUR behaviours that lead him into responding as he does…STOP attracting them, you women on here sound like a bunch of submissives who are pissed off that he didnt play the role exactly as you wanted ,then you rape queens yell out OH ABUSE… not looking at your role in the process… 90 % of the traits you say are psychotic arent…
ADVICE: Curb your anger and paranoia
Focus on your greater goals,your purpose in life

chasing your shadows only makes them bigger

p.s in my experience with women who have a past history of abuse in relationships,well if a Nice and caring guy comes along then Her being so used to abuse and if HE doesnt abuse or disrespect ,then well she becomes the predator because thats the mindset she is familiar with… those who are common to abusive relationsips are just as predatorial as the other… peace ,respect … let love fill you and be independant .not needy for relationships…
Alex

October 17, 2007 12:22 pm

cultmember

ps you cant go by stats , anyone assessed by a court dr. is considered psychopath, even if he isnt. thats the way the courts work THE BIG LIE… even if you flip on a charge which if you want out you just take it… example cop beats people up then charges the victim , then the courts say if you flip on this chrge we let you out today but if you try to fight it we are putting you in for another 6 months .. then they say he is a psychopath for beating up a cop… so yOUR stats are 150% LIES … This website is a great idea so people can be aware,of that there is truly psychotics but its rare…. everyman is considered psychopath by the very nature of being a man… but if a man does this such and such ,doesnt make him psychopath… gee I wish I were a psychopath then I too would have no conscious then I could be a cop or join the military, or be a childs aide workere who abuse children marketing them off through the system… but I do give a shit , and i see what this world is run by… it aint pretty ,the lies the government is psychopathic by ALL definitions.. hey look at the parent who is a psychotic by putting her /his kid on drugs , saying oh he is A d d . or hyperactive,so these parents drug up their kids,cuz a dr. says… now thats abuse of the worst kind or the parent whop puts their kid in a religion to learn abuse to the extreme…. but hey no one wants to be responsibility for shit…why is the psychopath the way he is … apparently its a learned behaviour by not being raised with love… by thier parents, then the kid groes up and you are blaming him still … as this website does…

gettingoverthetrauma – I get the same feel in regard to holehearted.
DBT treatment as an OUTPATIENT sounds like a really good start for this individual.
I hear poision spewing out of cultmember’s words. What is a scitsophrenic? An attempt to spell schizophrenic?
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness and has nothing at all to do with “attracting psychopaths” .
I agree it is important to focus on the greater goals .
I don’t believe we are “man haters” (the majority of us anyway)
Hate is not condusive to healing: understanding is, however.
Peace be with you all.

October 17, 2007 10:39 pm

neveragain

Thank you for the original post. I know it old now, but I just read it and very comforting. Helps me make sense of things without feeling like I’m totally flawed. That is what my gut has told me over and over. That he is TOTALLY the problem, that with a normal person, my actions would have been just fine. On the otherhand, I also recognized in my gut that some women would have “woke up” a lot sooner. I DO tend to anxiety, and can admit that without feeling TERRIBLE about myself..or totally f*cked up….and it makes sense how that contributed to me being so determined to make it all work and how hard it was to deal with the silences, etc. It also gives me a direction to go on….dealing with anxiety better is probably what I need to work on next. Also explains why I will still crave him at times….those are times filled with anxiety!

December 15, 2008 3:07 pm

Wini

Justabouthealed: It’s OK to waffle. Anytime you find yourself wanting to talk … just blog on with us. Anyone on line at the time you write, will gladly write you back.

Peace to your heart and soul as you heal. For now, just pamper yourself. Be easy on yourself … don’t judge yourself so harshly. I like to take long bubble baths … I turn on some jazz and soak for hours … never answering the phone or jumping for the doorbell. It’s my hours to spend pampering myself.

December 15, 2008 3:18 pm

Ox Drover

I can’t believe that here is another article that I totally MISSED from last year. I thought I had read every article on this site! Goes to show you there is so much more to LF than even those of us that have been around and looked back and read and reread what we thought were all the articles. Sheesh, this is THE BEST SITE ON THE NET!!!!

Justabouthealed, wini is right, we waffle back and forth and that is NORMAL. I wish healing were a straightline but it isn’t, it is more like that “All in the Family” sunday cartoons where it shows the kid’s path all over the neighborhood, back and forth! But, in the end, if you just hang on long enough and give it enough tme (and time is heart-time, not clock time) you will come out the other end of the tunnel a new and stronger person! ((((hugs))))

December 15, 2008 7:25 pm

Indigoblue

Personaly I don’t think me and cultmember would see eye to eye ! Gabergaw giberish hopefully he’s moved to Psycoform

December 15, 2008 7:33 pm

hens

Hey Jere Wini and Oxy u got male~~~~!!!

December 15, 2008 11:07 pm

Indigoblue

I Wished for MALE for Christmass :)~
I think Kerry Degman will fit nicely in my Stocking:)~

Did You notice
That when some one wants to Argue instead talk they go on an Immediate attack! ?

December 16, 2008 12:44 am

Indigoblue

I’m sure Donna put and end to his posting or else OxD is not telling us what really fertilized the Garden :)~

December 16, 2008 12:48 am

Elizabeth Conley

This is awesome advice. Like many here, I wish I’d read it long ago. The process of going NC with a cluster B and getting our joy back is very stressful. The advice in this article in spot on.

December 16, 2008 9:55 am

DancingWarrior

Dr. Leedom,

As I mentally prepare to finally divorce my hsuband (filed in June then backed off), I have to be cautious not to let him get under my skin. I still have a couples therapy session next week. The last two he came late, said he wants fast track therapy, and dumped anger and blame on me for not having a cell on me when he was late. I want all the “evidence” I can get that I am doing the right thing so I won’t look back as having mad a mistake.

I can relate to the caution not to neglect our child(ren) while absorbed with the s/p partner.

There have been times when I would get off the phone with my (narcissistic) husband and feel so conflicted, anxious, angry, all around bad, and if I had to interact with my daughter immediately after that disturbing phone call, inevitably I’d snap at her, or see that she somehow felt the brunt of my bad feelings.

It is very hard to keep my eyes focused FORWARD and not look backa and second guess my feelings or decision.

December 6, 2009 1:01 pm

Ox Drover

Dear Dancing Warrior,

As I answered on your other post on another thread, I think you are starting to see the light—there is no healing without accepting responsibility. He isn’t going to heal because he will never accept responsibility for his actions.

I know it is difficult to get your head around that concept, it sure was for me. Now I am only focused on healing me. Fortunately, my kids are grown, so I am no longer having to do the parenting thing to help them mature. Though the three of us are supporting each other in our own healing as they have suffered from my egg donor and my P-son (or as they say their X-brother). Now we are friends and fellow travelers on the road toward healing ourselves.

I pray for your peace and that you recover your joy.

December 6, 2009 3:12 pm

sotired

Good post and I’m throwing in a question.

Without going deep into my background I want to say, I am truly recovering with the help of friends, family and a great therapist. I have had a long history with N’s or P’s and am now trying to love myself, forgive myself and move forward. However, I still am caught in the trying to understand phase.

My rationalizing the “whys” continue to haunt me. I feel pity for the last N that I broke off with almost a year ago. I have had NC for the last 5 weeks. It’s so difficult some days but I sit on my hands if I have to. This relationship was 8 years.

He abuses… alcohol and is a gambling addict. Lies, lies and more lies. Borrowed a large sum of money I will never see. Addiction. My thoughts are that he could also have Aspergers. Drinking and gambling could help him cover this.

However, the bottom line is whether he is an N or P or alcoholic or mentally diseased person he is bad for me.

I wonder if it is possible that addictions can cause a permanent change in the brain to create this behavior. It doesn’t let him off the hook one way or the other, just some thoughts and questions I have for loveblog readers.

In addition, loveblog is an awesome site I’ve recently been reading and thanks for all the help.

Any others have addictions or aspergers diagnosed or observed in your N/P’s?

December 6, 2009 7:25 pm

DancingWarrior

Hi OxDrover,
Yes, beginning to see the light, yet pulled back repeatedly as I learn “how to crawl” before I can learn how to walk on my own two feet.

Is there a simple way to access a previous post I commented on if I wanted to see your reply?

December 6, 2009 7:44 pm

Ox Drover

There may be, not sure! I’m a computer dummie! You might e mail donna and ask her. I am able to get up the blog, on a day when I have good air card service, or cuss the darned theng when I don’t. LOL

It is difficult to learn to move on to the healing road and to stay there. It seems so long and so hard, but there are people here to hold your hand or “boink”you with teh cyber cast iron skillet if you are too hard on yourself! LOL I think forgiving myself for putting up with the chaos from first one P and then another was the hardest thing I have ever done. But it is like peeling an onion, you get through one stinking layer and there is another one to peel back, but you just keep on going, one at a time, until you “get there.”

I’m been on the healing road for quite some time, and each day I feel stronger and better and learn something new to work on. rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are we, we have new ways of coping and getting healthy things to learn and try out and use and it takes time. Getting him out of your life will be the biggest hurdle, but the best, because once you are NO CONTACT with him, you can start to get enough VISION that you can see past his FOG–fear, obligation and guilt—that blinds us. Hang in there!!! (((hugs)))

December 6, 2009 8:36 pm

duped

I am very attached to my children. I want nothing to do with my ex S!

My therapist looks at me like I might be worse off then she thought when I say I’d feel little more than relief if he was found dead in a gutter. But then again, I don’t think she believes he’s more than just mentally unhealthy. After all, “a sociopath wouldn’t feel anything if they kicked or beat their child” but anything short of that is something else…and redeemable. Surely he’s among the former and not the latter????

I digress…

Anyway, it is VERY hard not to be reactive when your child comes home from an overnight with the other parent in the same clothes (down to the underwear) you sent them in after wearing them at school all day. Hives all over his legs and bottom, a new bruise on his back the size of an original silver dollar with no explanation, and saying his father “hates” such and such move… he says it’s “stupid” and exclaiming he got to watch the Spiderman movie with the Green Goblin (PG-13).

My son just turned 4 a couple of weeks ago! Who’s the adult here? What’s going on that I’m NOT hearing about?

I’m ATTACHED to my child…I can’t get FREE from the S! And the S will USE my ATTACHMENT to my child to tweak my everlasting, last nerve!!!

Outraged by the condition of my child when he came home yesterday,

Duped

December 6, 2009 11:43 pm

duped

DancingWarrior,

I haven’t discovered a filter yet for the site. I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser. On the Edit menu it has a Find function that allows you to search a page as you would a document, looking for key word/s. When you launch it, look for it at the bottom of the window. That might help you sift through to find specifically what you’re looking for.

December 6, 2009 11:49 pm

Ox Drover

Dear sotired,

Dear it doesn’t matter what his diagnosis is, if he is TOXIC he is poison, slow poison, and you don’t need it. I know it is easy to be caught up in the what if and why but the thing is, it doesn’t matter. DOES NOT MATTER! Many Ps also “self medicate” with drugs/alcohol/excitement (such as gambling) but no matter, you must stay NC—GOOD FOR YOU!!!

It starts out for them, but becomes about US–why did you stay for so long? We can’t fix them but we can improve ourselves. Keep on reading here great articles, go back through all the old archived articles and read every one, just the articles fo rnow, but read read READ> Knowledge=Power take back kyour power!!! ((((hugs))))

Duped: I know it must be awful to send your kid to stay with someone you can’t trust and that you know can’t love him (or you) but try to stay focused on the BIG ISSUES like I tell Banana, your son won’t die from dirty clothes, but I would make photographs of him (time and date stamped) of him as he leaves and as he returns, just to keep for an evidence documentary, also measure and photograph all bruises and tape record anything your child says about how he got the bruise. Kids do get bruises. Put a ruler up beside the bruise as you take the photograph, and try to down play it with your child so he won’t snitch you out.

Document, document document!!!! and whatever you do don’t blow a gasket or even mention anything to your x about the same clothes etc. it isn’t a good idea to let them in on things that you are watching, and he won’t care, in fact, he may be glad it irritated you. Hang in there sweetie! Do the best you can! That’s all anyone can do is the best they can. (((hugs)))) and God bless you and your son.

December 6, 2009 11:53 pm

duped

Oxy,

You are correct! Good advice and wisdom of which I’m aware… and yet I blew a gasket anyway. This tends to happen, regardless of wisdom and progress, right before I start my menstrual cycle. I have it in my calendar as a reoccurring appointment and a reminder, as does probably he by now. I’ve vowed to not react or make big decisions during this vulnerable time period.

But I did…and now my guilt in enabling him further and setting progress back by a few months is what dominates the cycles of my brain more so than any actual risk to my child.

Good news is, he’ll be back to doing the same within six weeks. Bad news is, he’ll be back to doing the same within six weeks.

Yesterday I encountered him unexpected. I COULD NOT HELP trying to have one good talk that would sort everything out, any more than I could help myself getting his address off an electoral register site and writing him a letter saying how hurt I was.

Today I got a new copy of Women Who Love Too Much, which hurts in the right way – the pain of recognising what this really is. Also I recalled a book I read once, something for alcoholics who can’t get on with AA (I’m not alcoholic – my mother was). In this it says you are NEVER out of control. Every single thing you do is in your control. Every action you make is in your conscious control. I had to walk back a mile on icy pavements (sidewalks, US people!) to confront him. Who had a gun to my head?

I chose to go and confront him. I could certainly have prevented myself from doing so. It was my deciision, just like having “just one drink” is a conscious decision on the part of an alcoholic. This is a lesson I have to learn again every single day.

Oh, and did the One Last Talk sort everything out? Three guesses…

Christmas is a horrible, lonely time for me. This post is a moment of sanity which I cannot guarantee will last. Now the people at the centre are saying he may wish to come back to the writing group where we met (a group I greatly value) and they cannot stop him. So THAT nags at me. So I am not sane. But now I WANT to be sane – that’s vast progress for me. Before I wanted him back, I wanted to try again, I wanted him to be the lovely man he was that time, and – above all – I wanted to win.

Yes, living a good life is winning. But I wanted the sort of winning where he was crying on the floor.

Trying as hard as I can. This helps. Thanks, all.

December 22, 2009 3:40 pm

eileen

Hi Huytongirl, I think you know already but sociopaths can’t feel shame nor guilt…it’s always someone else’s fault…even the psychiatric ward or the prison can’t change them nor break them. There’s no talking them into sanity…at the best you’ll get a most unsincere apology.
So talking to them is pointless and could even backfire and make you feel miserable (they are good at that too as you know) but don’t be angry with yourself for trying though. It’s only human. Just don’t do it again – next time ignore him. That’s the only way you can annoy him (I was going to write “hurt him” but he’s beyond that too). Really indifference is the best revenge – even if you need to fake it at first. They are all about control so everyday you don’t contact him is a day he’s not controlling you and you’re winning.
Why couldn’t they stop him from re-joining that group? Have a good chat with someone you trust in that group. Use words like “bully” and “stalk”. My S tried something similar and someone just told him he was not welcome. In another place he was followed around by a security guard – didn’t come back.
Good luck – Xmas is a depressing time for many people, only a few more days and it will be over.

December 22, 2009 4:15 pm

Ox Drover

Dear huytongirl,

Sweetie, your post WAS AND IS SANE, and you are so right, we HAVE CONTROL and we have a CHOICE to exercise it. So do they. Difference is, THEY DON’T CARE WHO GETS HURT.

I am so glad that you ARE SANE, and I know that each day you can and will make BETTER CHOICES…that’s what life is all about for all of us, not just you.

We all made some bad choices, and we must forgive ourselves for those choices, and quit beating ourselves over the head for them, but today, just for TODAY we will make better choices.

This man is NOTHING, fancy accent be damned! No accents make you better, no accents make you worse. NOTHING makes him a whit superior to anyone, what makes him INFERIOR to others is he does not care how he HURTS OTHERS.

If you see him again, SNUB him like the queen would snub a convict. Just pretend he isn’t there, that he is invisible, that he is just as interesting as a plastic potted plant, don’t even let on that you notice him. After all, do you speak to plastic potted plants? Or reply to them if you think one of them talked to you? Of course not.

So give him the PLASTIC POTTED PLANT TREATMENT, it is what he deserves.